Chapter Four

  Day Three

  Location – Temporary camp – Somewhere in the Thinahtea South Protected Area, Canada

  Mayday!

  Mayday!

  Mayday!

  Wind rushing—trees tearing—

  ——The snap of a parachute.

  Bang!

  Ashes jolts awake, heart hammering, breath caught in her throat. She blinks into darkness, the echo of the dream still hanging in the air like smoke.

  Bang!

  She exhales—just thunder. Rain drums hard on the shelter overhead, steady and relentless. She listens for a moment, grounding herself, then lets her head fall back against her pack with a soft thump.

  Well. At least she’d stocked up on firewood.

  With a groan, she shifts forward and coaxes the fire back to life, feeding it dry twigs and kindling until the orange glow returns. Warmth begins to seep back into the air.

  Ashes reaches into her gear and pulls out the flat stone she collected yesterday, then settles near the firelight and draws her multitool.

  Time to sharpen it up.

  She works carefully, methodically drawing the blade down the flat stone over and over, checking the edge every few strokes. It’s not perfect—nowhere near a proper whetstone—but it’ll do.

  With the multitool freshly honed, Ashes pulls a solid branch from her firewood pile and turns it over in her hands. It’s dense, straight-grained, and just thick enough to work with. She starts shaving it down, cutting thin strips away, slowly shaping it.

  What takes form isn’t an arrow—not really—but it has the same sharp taper. A crude spearhead. Not strong enough for a full thrust, but good enough to stab in a pinch. Maybe it could take a deer. Maybe something worse.

  She refines the edges with the file, working them into a cleaner wedge. When it feels right, she blows the dust away and holds it up to the firelight, inspecting the grain and point.

  Then, carefully, she rotates the tip in the flames—just above the coals—hardening the wood with slow, steady turns. Not charring it, but drying it out, tightening the fibers.

  When it’s done, she sets the spearhead aside. A proper shaft will have to wait until she finds a longer branch worth shaping.

  The hours drift by. She picks at small tasks—tightening lashings, cleaning tools, fixing the sag in the shelter edge. Simple things. Survival things.

  Her thoughts wander, and a memory surfaces—fifteen years old, deep in the bush with Mama and Papa. No spoons. No forks. Just one rule: if you want to eat, carve your own.

  She’d grumbled then. But now, the memory feels warm.

  She’s so thankful for the upbringing she had. Not just because it gave her the best childhood anyone could ask for—but because it’s giving her the tools to survive now. All those summers in the bush. All those little lessons that felt silly at the time. Every one of them matters out here.

  Finally, after what feels like four hours, the rain lets up—just as sudden as it started.

  Ashes waits twenty more minutes, just in case it’s only a pause and not the end. When the sky holds steady, she slips out of the shelter.

  Everything is soaked. The air smells green and alive.

  She sets off toward the stream, feet squelching softly in the mossy earth, the forest dripping around her. The line and bone hook have been on her mind since the storm rolled in—and now she needs to see if it held.

  When she reaches the stream, her heart sinks.

  The water’s swollen, roaring louder than before. It’s muddy, fast, churning with debris. Whatever calm eddies had existed before are long gone.

  Ashes grimaces, already expecting the worst.

  She finds the tree where she tied the 550 cord and hauls the line out of the water.

  Nothing.

  Just a frayed, empty string.

  She sighs, shoulders sagging with the loss—not just the hook, but the work. The hope.

  Then her head tilts slightly.

  A new noise tickles at the edge of her awareness—quiet, distant, but wrong.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Not wind. Not water.

  Something else.

  An engine.

  Faint. Distant.

  Ashes freezes, heart slamming into her ribs as adrenaline surges like fire through her veins.

  She bolts.

  Red hair streams behind her as she tears through the forest, leaping roots and dodging branches. She stumbles, hard—slamming into the ground with her hands and chest.

  “Gah—!”

  She grits her teeth and scrambles up again, ignoring the sting of fresh scrapes, blood blooming across her palms. The sound is louder now. The engine. Still coming.

  Hope rises like a scream in her chest.

  She sprints the rest of the way, lungs burning, barely noticing the terrain she’s crashing through. She bursts into camp in under two minutes, gasping for breath, eyes wide with panic and purpose.

  The bag. The flare. The mirror.

  She dives into the shelter, dragging the pack toward her and ripping it open. Her fingers close on the smoke flare and the signal mirror. She casts about wildly, searching for a break in the trees—anything. She hadn't found a proper clearing before, but now...

  There. A small opening in the canopy. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

  She races to it, boots skidding in the wet soil, and looks up.

  There it is. A tiny speck of silver, far toward the northwest—almost directly above where the crash must be.

  Too far.

  Her stomach drops. If she fires the flare now, it’ll vanish into the wrong part of the sky. Wasted.

  She grips the signal mirror instead, angling it with trembling hands, catching slivers of sunlight, flashing again and again in the direction of the plane.

  “Please,” she whispers. “Please see me.”

  The small aircraft loiters for what feels like a lifetime—fifteen minutes, maybe more—circling, scanning, never drifting her way.

  And then, it turns.

  Climbing.

  Pulling away.

  “No—!”

  Ashes screams, raw and furious, her voice tearing into the sky as the engine fades into the distance.

  She drops the mirror, falls to her knees.

  And sobs.

  After a while, she gathers the mirror from the grass and shakily stands, brushing her palms against her pants.

  “Come on,” she whispers, voice thick. “You know there’ll be other planes, girl.”

  But it’s hard—so damn hard—to think logically right now. To watch her first real sign of rescue vanish into the sky like a mirage. She squares her shoulders and pats her cheeks with both hands.

  “I need to get closer to the wreck,” she mutters. “When the rescue crews show up, I need them to see the flare.”

  She trudges slowly back toward camp, dragging her feet through the damp undergrowth. When she arrives, she grabs her pack and slumps onto the fallen log beside her fire pit.

  Only then does she really look at her hands.

  Her right’s mostly okay—just scraped up, sore from the fall. But her left…

  A deep gash runs along the side, bleeding freely now that the adrenaline is fading. The pain, barely noticed before, hits her like a hot spike. Acknowledging it makes it ten times worse.

  She grits her teeth and pulls out her water bag, carefully rinsing away the dirt and blood. Then she unzips the tiny first aid kit and pulls out the small roll of gauze—barely enough for one good wrap. The cut’s far too big for a bandage to do anything useful.

  She binds the wound as best she can, tight but not too tight, the white cloth quickly blotting red.

  Then, cursing under her breath, she takes one of the precious antibiotic tablets and swallows it dry.

  “Stupid,” she mutters. “You know better than to run blind.”

  But it’s done.

  She makes a slow lap through the woods, checking each of her snares.

  Nothing.

  No fur, no disturbed brush—just silence. One by one, she pulls up the cords, coiling them neatly and tucking them into her pack. No point leaving them out if she’s moving on soon.

  Afterward, she treks back toward the stream. The memory of dropping the line during her panicked run nags at her, but when she reaches the bank, relief floods her.

  The cord is still there.

  Soaked and half-buried in mud, but intact.

  She exhales and retrieves it, fingers working carefully to untangle the knots. Out here, every scrap of cordage is gold. Irreplaceable.

  By the time she returns to camp, the adrenaline is gone—and hunger roars back in its place. Her stomach twists painfully, reminding her how little she’s eaten.

  Two rabbits and a handful of berries in three days.

  Not starvation—yet—but close.

  She hasn’t lost weight, not really. But her body feels lighter. Hollow. Like it's quietly cannibalizing itself, hour by hour.

  Back at camp, Ashes stokes the fire with shaking hands, feeding it small branches until the flames catch. The warmth is instant, but it doesn’t touch the ache in her gut.

  She doesn’t have the energy to cook anything elaborate—not that she has anything left worth cooking. Just a small strip of smoked rabbit from the rack and a few mashed salmonberries pressed into a scrap of bark. She eats slowly, savoring every bite, trying not to think about how little there is.

  The fire crackles softly as the shadows stretch long across the forest floor. Her shelter feels smaller tonight—tighter. Like the trees are closing in just a little more.

  She leans back against the root wall, chewing the last bit of meat, eyes flicking toward the canopy where the plane had vanished hours earlier. The clearing still catches the last light, but there's no silver glint. No engine. Just sky.

  Ashes wraps her arms around her knees and lets her eyes close for a moment.

  The fatigue is deep now—not just physical, but in her bones. In her thoughts. It would be so easy to just lie down, give in, and stop fighting the creeping weight of it all.

  But she won’t.

  She can’t.

  Tomorrow, she’ll break camp.

  She’ll move closer to the wreck site. Closer to where someone might still be searching. Closer to rescue.

  She opens her eyes, the firelight reflected in her pupils like tiny sparks.

  Tonight, she rests.

  Tomorrow, she moves.